• Full-time student = full-time work = 40 hours/week
• Full-time student = 12 credits
• 3 credits - 1/4 full time = 10 hours/week
• 2 hours/week in-class, 8 hours/week out of class on average
• 16 weeks total = 128 hours out of class
  • Week 7 = 56 hours out of class

• Primary sources provide the original materials on which other research is based. Published materials can be viewed as primary resources if they come from the time period that is being discussed, and were written or produced by someone with firsthand experience of the event. Often primary sources reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer.
  • Laws, news reports, speeches, diaries, letters, artefacts, music, buildings, etc.
• Secondary Sources interpret primary sources. They add a layer of interpretation and analysis to the coverage of the topic.
  • most books about a topic, scholarly or other articles about a topic, documentaries, analysis or interpretation of data

• Migrations and the emergence of Medieval states

• The "Feudal Revolution"

• Separation of Catholic (Latin) and Orthodox (Greek) Christianity

• Philosophy and the transmission of knowledge in the Greek and Arabic worlds

The end of the expansion of the Caliphate

• Siege of Constantinople (717)
• Battle of Poitiers (732)

All empires exercised relatively weak control over their territory

• Grandson of Charles Martel, victor at Poitiers
• Ruled Franks 768-814, crowned "emperor" Christmas Day, 800
• United much of western Europe in his Christian empire, conquering Lombards in Italy, northern Spain from the Muslims, Saxony (northern Germany), and destroyed the Avar Khaganate
• Established a capital in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), but court was fundamentally itinerant
• Promoted new period of learning, starting the Carolingian Renaissance
  • New script "miniscule"
  • Large amount of manuscripts copied
  • New schools and textbooks

• A devolved political system, where power is exercised locally by private individuals (as opposed to the bureaucracy of a centralized state, like the Roman Empire)
• Mature form really only found in post-Carolingian France and Germany (10th and 11th centuries), not universally across Medieval Europe
• Three key elements
  • lordship/vassalage, a personal and reciprocal reltionship between unequals
  • fief, landed property which the vassal controls on behalf of his/her lord, ruled from a manor
  • private exercise of government over vassals and fiefs

• Elements emerged from Roman and Germanic systems
  • Roman society structured through patron/client networks
  • Roman aristocracy ruled great estates (latifundia) from their villas, precursor to the medieval fief, and also had private security forces to guard their property
  • German comitatus, a personally-bound warband
• Theoretically, a clear hierarchy of lords and vassals from the king through the nobility to the individual knight. In practice, local autonomy could be very high
• The Church and monasteries participated in this social structure
  • Peace of God and Truce of God were attempts in C11 to limit and regulate behaviour

By Benedict of Nursia, C5 AD, tr. Cardoma; Gasqiet

Let [the Abbot] make no distinction of persons in the monastery. let not one be loved more than another, save such as be found to excel in obedience or good works. Let not the free-born be put before the serf-born in religion, unless there be other reasonable cause for it. If upon due consideration the abbot shall see such cause he may place him where he pleases; otherwise let all keep their own places, because whether bond or free we are all one in Christ, and bear and equal burden of service under one Lord; for with God there is no accepting of persons. For one thing only are we preferred by Him, if we are found better than others in good works and more humble. Let the abbot therefore have equal love for all and let all, according to their deserts, be under the same discipline.

• Migrations are difficult to track. We approximate them with evidence from
  • Historical sources (outsiders, oral history)
  • Linguistics
  • Material culture (pottery, costume, technology)
  • Genetics

• Lombards migrated into northern Italy late C6, conquered by Charlemagne and annexed late C8
• Avars settled in northern Balkans late C6, conquered by neighbors early C9
• Bulgarians settled in the Balkans late C7, converted to (Orthodox) Christianity mid-C9
• Norse "Vikings" raided as far as Persia and settled England, Normandy, Sicily, Russia, and the North Atlantic islands between late C8 and C11
• Magyars (Hungarians) migrated to central Balkans C9-10, converted to (Catholic) Christianity late C10
• Turks migrated from the steppe into Persia, India, the Middle East and Asia Minor between C6 and C11

From the Russian Primary Chronicle (C12), tr. Cross

6495 (987) The Prince and all the people, chose good and wise men to the number of ten, and directed them to go first among the Volga Bulgars and inspect their faith. The emissaries went their way, and when they arrived at their destination they beheld the disgraceful actions of the Volga Bulgars and their worship in the mosque; then they returned to their own country. Vladimir then instructed them to go likewise among the Germans, and examine their faith, and finally to visit the Greeks. They thus went into Germany, and after viewing the German ceremonial, the proceeded to Tsargrad (Constantinople), where they appeared before the Emperor. … Thus they returned to their own country, and the Prince called together his vassals and the elders. Vladimir then announced the return of the envoys who had been sent out, and suggested that their report be heard. He thus commanded them to speak out

before his vassals. The envoys reported, "When we journeyed among the Volga Bulgars, we beheld how they worship in their temple, called a mosque, while they stand ungirt. The Volga Bulgars bows, sits down, looks hither and thither like one possessed, and there is no happiness among them, but instead only sorrow and dreadful stench. Their religion is not good. Then we went among the Germans, and saw them performing many ceremonies in their temples; but we beheld no glory there. Then we went on to Greece, and the Greeks led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. . Then the vassals spoke and said, "If the Greek faith were evil, it would not have been adopted by your grandmother Olga, who was wiser than all other men." Vladimir then inquired where they should all accept baptism, and they replied that the decision rested with him.

Muslims from al-Andalus occupied Crete (820s-960s) and conquered Sicily beginning in the 880s

• The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire continued to have a functioning centralized bureaucracy, legal system, tax apparatus, and professionalized military
  • Theme system localized support for the military, reducing obligations of the central state
• Prohibitions against religious imagery is part of all Abrahamic religions. Orthodox Iconoclasm (730-787, 811-842) was a struggle over the place of religious imagery in society
  • Support or opposition to iconoclasm was used as a political tool for new regimes to consolidate power in Constantinople
• Empress Eirene of Athens (r. 797-802), the only woman to rule the Romans in her own name, was the major player in ending the first period of iconoclasm

Hagia Irene, Constantinople, redecorated in "iconoclast" art in the mid 8th century following an earthquake

• Under the Macedonian Dynasty, the Eastern Roman Empire saw a period of stability and cultural output similar, in many ways, to the Carolingian Renaissance in the Latin West
  • New script "miniscule"
  • Large amount of manuscripts copied
  • New schools and textbooks
  • New contact and exchange with the Muslim world
  • Missionaries to Eastern Europe converted Bulgars, Slavs, and the Rus to Orthodox Christianity

Liutprand of Cremona's mission to Constantinople in 949, tr. Wright

Before the emperor's seat stood a tree, made of bronze gilded over, whose branches were filled with birds, also made of gilded bronze, which uttered different cries, each according to its varying species. The throne itself was so marvelously fashioned that at one moment it seemed a low structure, and at another it rose high into the air. It was immense size and was guarded by lions, made either of bronze or wood covered with gold, who beat the ground with their tails and gave a dreadful roar with open mouth and quivering tongue. Leaning upon the shoulders of two eunuchs I was brought into the emperor's presence. At my approach the lions began to roar and the birds to cry out, each according to its kind; but I was neither terrified nor surprised, for I had previously made enquiry about all of these things from people who were well acquainted with them.

So after I had three times made obeisance to the emperor with my face upon the ground, I lifted my head, and behold! The man whom just before I had seen sitting on a moderately elevated seat had now changed his raiment and was sitting on the level of the ceiling. How it was done I could not imagine, unless perhaps he was lifted up by some such sort of device as we use for raising the timbers of a wine press.

The Eastern Roman Empire at the death of Basil II in 1025

• The end of the Macedonian dynasty led to political instability at home
• Growing distance with the papacy culminated with the Great Schism of 1054
• New external enemies threatened the empire – Normans in Sicily, Pechnegs in the Balkans, Turks in Asia Minor
• The defeat at the Battle of Manzikert (1071) saw the empire's Anatolian heartland overrun by Turks in the following decades
  • The empire reached a nadir when Alexios I Komnenos took the throne in 1081. He beat back the Normans, and asked for help against the Turks, an appeal that directly led to Pope Urban II calling the First Crusade in 1095

The Eastern Roman Empire at the accession of Alexios I Komnenos in 1081

• While knowledge of Greek in the West and Latin in the east declined, classical knowledge from both traditions were being translated into Syriac and Arabic and studied by Muslims, Christians, and Jews
• The Muslim world was politically divided after 750, as localized centers of leaning developed in Bagdhad, Cairo, and Cordova
  • Apharabius (Al-Farabi), c.872-950, studied under a Christian teacher and produced important studies on Aristotle and jusriprudence
  • Avicenna (Ibn Sina), c.980-1037, was a Persian philosopher who made major contributions to the study of philosophy, natural philosophy ("science"), and medicine

• Primary
  • Einhard, The Life of Charlemagne
  • Michael Psellos, Chronographia ("Fourteen Byzantine Rulers")
  • Asser, The Life of King Alfred
• Secondary
  • R. McKitterick, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (2008)
  • M. Whittow, The Making of Byzantium, 600-1024 (1996)
  • C. Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 (2010)